


Number Five | The Monster Under The Bed

by Kraeyola



Series: Number Five | And The Things that Make Him Tick [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Allison Hargreeves is So done, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Attempted Kidnapping, BAMF Number Five | The Boy, Blood and Gore, But only a little, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Drug Abuse, Gore, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Not Canon Compliant, Number Five is crazy, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy is scary, Number Five | The Boy-centric, One Shot, Other, Post-Season 2, Protective Diego Hargreeves, Protective Luther Hargreeves, Protective Number Five | The Boy, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Torture, Vanya Hargreeves Deserves Better, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25908559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kraeyola/pseuds/Kraeyola
Summary: Sometimes it's easy to forget what Five truly is. A small lanky body, little boy-scout shorts, and a schoolboy uniform without a single wrinkle. His boyish face that's always wearing a too-serious expression for someone(supposedly)so young. Not that the siblings don't respect Five as an equal, it's just... well. It's hard to take him so seriously sometimes.It's so easy to forget he had been(still is)the world's best, and most lethal assassin.After all, it's hard to believe things without witnessing them first hand.There is a monster under the bed and it's in the shape of a thirteen-year-old boy.AKA: The members of the Umbrella Academy become witnesses to Five's ability to commit acts of incredible violence and begin to revaluate the brother they may have known, or perhaps never knew at all.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, No Romantic Relationship(s), Number Five | The Boy & Allison Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves
Series: Number Five | And The Things that Make Him Tick [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892845
Comments: 18
Kudos: 734
Collections: The Umbrella Academy





	Number Five | The Monster Under The Bed

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, just some fair warnings:  
> -Characters are likely OOC  
> -I wrote this in four hours (when I shouldn't have been writing it OOPS) 
> 
> I just really felt the need to get this plot bunny out there because honestly there's not a lot of fics about Five and his murderous ways.

**Luther Hargreeves**

* * *

Luther was used to carrying responsibility. 

He was number one, it was his job- no his duty to take care of his _(arguably)_ innocent siblings, and protect them from the darker corners of the world. 

But this? Luther's face is twisted into some emotion he's never felt before. Bile crowding his airways, nose wrinkling at the stench of blood, fingers twitching with adrenaline, a cold feeling settling into his bones.

Luther was no stranger to violence. No stranger to blood and the vile scent of death. Reginald raised him after all. He was supposed to be the front-liner, the one who fought all the hard battles, the one who had to make all the tough decisions so his siblings wouldn't have to. Diego and he were supposed to be the ones to take care of their smaller, softer siblings. 

_That was his duty._

It was the purpose that he built his life around. Both of them did, even if they pursued that purpose in vastly different ways. Him chasing after his father and striving to lead the team just as their father would have wanted and Diego clawing back at every order out of spite and urging his siblings to do the same.

"Father doesn't have our best interest at heart." Diego had told him once when the two sat down after a long grueling training session. Luther doesn't remember what had happened after that conversation, but he wishes sometimes he could have told past him _(as much as he hated it)_ that Diego had been right. Reginald never had their best interests at heart. Only that they served their purpose.

Then one day out of the blue Ben died, and Luther had felt a crack in the wall he had built. 

Everything had shifted just a little bit to the left. Only a little bit.

They had only been children at the time. But they became colder, crueler, and meaner. The carefully crafted illusion of family unraveling at the very seams. Luther remembered how it felt watching the facade crumble away. He had hated it. So he tried. He tried so hard to protect all of them from Ben's death. Pushed for them all to continue with their daily lives and insisting that they had to keep going with being heroes. How could they not? Ben had _died_ for this. For their career, and their cause. It would have been disrespectful to Ben if they hadn't continued _(continue what? Playing hero? Or playing fake family)_.

It was exactly what Reginald had wanted. 

It wasn't what his siblings had wanted.

He knew that now.

He knows it more than ever. As he stares at Five with blood splattered all over his face. The liquid dripping down his fingers. A crazed gleam in his eyes. A hungry smile peeling over his lips like a wild animal as he grapples with the last man left. 

There are bodies littered everywhere- all of them dead.

The rogue-commission cell had taken them by surprise this time.

They were supposed to be going out for a cup of coffee, Five having mentioned that he had something he needed to talk about with him regarding the rogue commission attacks they've all been facing.

Their assaulters had broken through the doors with guns blazing. Triggering a chain of events. The moment the glass window had broken Luther had already started moving. He reached out to his left, ready to haul Five behind cover so they could discuss their options but when he turned to grab Five the boy was already gone. Evaporating in a wisp of blue light and reappearing at one of the men's sides. 

Luther will never forget the face Five made when he brought the butterknife to the man's neck.

All cold-warm happy delighted fury.

A coy smile that was syrupy sweet, dripping with honey as bitter as the coffee the boy drinks.

After that, the fight had been a blur.

Carnage spewing in all directions. Blood painting the walls, and guts spilling out on the floor like some sort of sick replica of a broken pinata. A couple of the men that weren't distracted by Five were aiming for him, and at that point, he had to turn his attention away from his brother _(?)_. He grimly clocked one of them in the jaw. Not hard enough to kill _(never to kill)_ but hard enough to knock them out. He hopes for their sake that they stay unconscious.

The fight had been short. 

Couldn't have been more than five minutes tops. That should have been good. The fastest fights are always the best, it means that there is a less likely chance of casualties on their side. That's what Reginald had told him. It was Luther's duty to be the tough one, the one that had to be hard on the criminals and take them out as brutally as fast as possible in order to protect his siblings. This was the ideal fight, the ideal outcome. 

What Reginald had trained him for.

And yet.

Watching Five calmly step off the man, the last dredges of Five's manic grin disappearing from view, Luther feels cold. 

Luther tries not to look too much. Wary of stepping on the scattered bodies he pulls away from the body that had flown in his direction. The one riddled with bullet holes and is missing an ear. He carefully maneuvers his large body over the scattered remains of extremities and weirdly shaped lumps. One of the men was missing both his eyes. Another with his head split in half.

"They really are persistent huh?" Five says loudly, neatly fixing his jacket as if he hadn't just slaughtered about 20 men. Noticing his silence, Five turns to him leaning lazily against the counter reaching for a pot of black coffee, "Something wrong?"

"No." Luther says quietly, "Nothing."

"Well if there's nothing bothering you, we should get moving. Looks like our meeting here has been compromised." 

If he hadn't said what he said then... Would...?

Would Five have turned out differently? 

* * *

**Diego Hargreeves**

* * *

"You know Five was an assassin for the commission right?" Diego says lazily. Twirling one of his throwing knives in his hands. Luther had come in earlier with that stupidly adorable kicked puppy face that Diego knows he can't say no to. He let the large man into his home before settling on making both of them a warm cup of joe. 

"I know." Luther replies, shifting in his seat nervously. His gloved hands tapping restlessly against the table. The man's eyes looking anywhere but at Diego. 

"I don't get what the big deal is, so what? He killed a couple of people, blah blah blah. It's not like they're innocent lives you know." Diego points out, taking a sip out of his cup. "They were ex-commission assassins."

"It wasn't just a couple of people." The larger man's face grimaces, briefly making eye contact with Diego before glancing away. "There were at least 20 of them there, and only three of them made it out alive. And those three? Those were the ones I knocked unconscious." 

Diego just snorts. He tosses the knife through the air. The metal cleanly slicing right through the target painted on his wall. "Okay, what's your point? You know everyone here has killed before, right? Even Vanya, hell especially Vanya! You know that time that crazy bitch ass handler brought like a whole army to us? Remember that?" Luther opens his mouth to speak but then shuts it. The silence drags on, leaving both men in an uncomfortable bout. Diego sighs, "Look man," he drawls, "Five isn't that kid that left us years ago, okay? He's a fully grown, jaded old man who had to do terrible things."

"You didn't see him." Luther states quietly his face tightening into a pensive sort of expression. Diego just rolls his eyes and pats the over-grown puppy gorilla on the shoulder and that was the last of that conversation. Luther had quietly excused himself probably to sulk somewhere else instead of in Diego's apartment. At the time Diego had just sighed and cleaned up, frowning at Luther's untouched cup of coffee.

But the conversation never left his mind. He found himself thinking back to it the morning after, two days later, and even a week from then.

And especially now.

Diego managed to find one of the hideouts belonging to the rogue-commission group. He got Five to tag-along to help search for information on Lila and the rogue group's main base of operations. The plan had been for the two of them to search opposite sides of the building while taking out as many agents as possible. The mission had started easily enough with Diego entering the building through one of the air-way vents. He hadn't encountered a lot of trouble, surprisingly. This place was supposed to be crawling with agents and guards and yet the most he encountered were just five scattered guards.

Well, good for him, he guesses? 

His fist itches, even when he's scrounging through drawers and cabinets. He must have spent a good 30 minutes just looking through offices before he finds it. It's lying in the head honcho's office. A letter neatly folded in a white envelope with gold embellishment. He tears off the wax with one of his knives and quickly scans the letter to confirm it's content. Once confirmed he slips it into his pocket and heads out. Time to get Five. 

Diego pulls out his phone, and makes a quick call. It picks up on the first ring along with Five's heavy breathing, "What?" 

"Where are you? I got-" There's grunting on the other side along with a couple of loud thuds. 

"Storage unit, second floor, call me back." The call ends just a few seconds after some horrific metallic noise, Diego frowns. 

The halls are eerily silent as he walks towards Five's side of the building. Did he overestimate this mission? Were these rogue commission agents just a bunch of cowards? His hand hovers his utility belt, anxious energy humming under his skin. Or maybe they're planning something? An ambush?

Or... maybe they're not planning anything, Diego realizes once he approaches the lobby that connects both sides of the building. The one Five must have come in through, Diego guesses. 

There are bodies everywhere. And he means, _everywhere._ There are multiple guards stuck in the ceiling and even more, scattered across the floor like haphazard bottles of beer. It's a fucking challenge just to find a space for him to put his shoe down just to walk. Jesus, there's blood everywhere too. You would have thought they painted the walls red instead of off-white, by the way, why is it always off-white? What's wrong with white?

Now don't get Diego wrong. He's not some fucking pansy. He's used to gore and violence. This doesn't really bother him, at least not like Luther. He's just annoyed because he's being mildly inconvenienced. That's all. He's seen worse. He's fought people who have done worse. But the more he looks around him, and the more bodies he has to wade through he keeps thinking back to that conversation he had with Luther a week ago.

Five.

He left them when they were kids, landed himself in the apocalypse, and came back to his family to try and stop it and save the world. During his time in the future, he got hired by the commission and became the world's most lethal assassin. 

World's most lethal assassin. Right. Diego knows that. Five wouldn't have been considered the world's most lethal assassin if he couldn't handle himself right? God, what the hell there's even chunks of flesh missing from multiple bodies, how the hell did that happen? He shivers. He needs to get out of this place. It fucking reeks of blood and piss. 

He curses Five under his breath. He nearly tripped over one of the bodies. 

"Damn it Five." He grumbles, at the very least the boy makes it easy to find him. All Deigo has to do is follow the yellow brick road or in this case, the road covered in corpses. These guys must have really wanted Five dead. Did it never occur to them... to well... run? It's quite obvious none of them were equipped to deal with Five. Not unless they had something up their sleeve. Oh shit, maybe they did and that's why so many of them came at him.

Crap.

He's just about spent the past three minutes avoiding stepping on bodies until he hears a muffled scream. Diego races through the halls towards the noise _(nearly tripping like six times, fucking Five gods damn it)_ , mind racing with every worst-case scenario. 

"FIVE!" Diego kicks down the door with a knife in hand. "HANDS OFF MY-"

"Oh," Five says casually, pulling away from the man pinned to the table. "Diego. You sure got here quick, nothing on your side?"

"What are you doing?" Diego says, eyes scanning through the room to take in the scene he's stumbled upon. The poor man whimpers, tears budding in his eyes. There are knives stabbed right through the man's hand keeping him pinned to the table. 

Five snorts, "You really are a dim-wit." he grumbles, "What does it look like? I'm trying to get the information, you know? The information about Lila? The one you asked me to help you with?" Diego swallows thickly, his throat suddenly going dry. Half the man's face was missing, his teeth stained red. How the fuck? There are even metal pins jammed under the man's fingernails, both of his legs twisted at the wrong angle, bullet holes riddled through his sides, and even a couple of metal instruments sticking out of his sides.

There's even more damage, Diego realizes with a sort of creeping horror as his eyes try searching the body trying to catalog every injury, which he finds almost impossible. There's too much. 

"How... is he..." Diego pauses, fingers twitching. "... Alive?" 

Five runs his hands across the table, a cold glint flickering across his eyes as he trails his fingers across the man's stomach. "Oh, I just stuck his body in a temporal loop." 

Diego might be sick, he stumbles backward a bit. Five notices quirking up his blood-stained eyebrows, his expression asking for an explanation.

It should be Diego who gets the explanation.

"I found her location." Diego says not sure why his voice is trembling. He hopes Five doesn't notice. 

"Really?" Five looks at him skeptically before letting his eyes roaming the poor man's body. Diego doesn't miss the cold, almost delighted way Five looks. Was Five always like this?

"I found it in one of the offices." Diego's voice sounds strained even to his own ears. Heart pounding strangely fast. He's not sure why he feels like running the more he stares at Five's face and how it morphs into something primal.

"Welp, I guess we're done here then!" Five turns to him with a lopsided grin before yanking out one of the metal instruments from the man's side. He screams, half sobbing. It's a pole. Diego half-realizes when Five stabs it right through the right eye-socket and into the skull.

Diego's heard plenty of bones breaking, and skulls cracking in his lifetime. Hell, he's been the reason for half of those. But there's something about this one that gets under his skin. There's something wrong about this one. The delighted, almost carefree glee that flickers across Five's face when he watches the pole squelch through the man's flesh. Something about the way his brother pat's the man's bloodstained stomach condescendingly before turning to leave triumphantly.

Five's hands are tugging at his jacket, a wide grin across his face as he slaps Deigo heartily on his back before declaring, "I'm proud of you brother! You really can be competent when you want to!" 

Diego ignores the back-handed compliment, eyes lingering on the presumably dead man's body. Some sick form of curiosity tells him to move to closer. "Is.. he... still stuck in the temporal-loopy thing?"

Five chuckles on his way out, "It'll wear off eventually. I'll meet you in the car! You owe me a cup of coffee!" Then, Five warps out leaving nothing but a cold vacuum of air in his place.

Diego steps towards the man, his eyes never straying from their mutilated face. He wants to see the full extent of the damage or to see if the man was still alive. A pole through the eye wasn't exactly a killing blow, or maybe it was. He hopes it was, as the man's eyes twitch at Diego, his breathing ragged, mouth opening to say something, anything really. 

"Pl-please..." Diego presses his lips into a thin line and turns away. Diego's never felt as cold as he does today as he leaves the room and re-enters the corpse-littered corridor. 

The temporal loopy thing will wear off eventually. That's what Five said. 

Eventually.

When Diego exits the building and climbs into the driver's seat, Five has already cleaned up. There's not a spot of blood on him or his pristine uniform. 

He spends the rest of the drive trying to convince himself that the smile he saw on Five's face was just his eyes playing tricks on him. 

* * *

**Allison Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves**

* * *

Allison had picked up Vanya from her apartment and drove the two of them towards the desired meeting location. Allison had been worried that they might have been late, but... guess she won't be worrying about that anymore. When they arrived Five was already in a fight, surrounded by commission agents. 

"Five-!" Vanya moves to help, but Allison stops her. Something in her gut churns as she watches the scene unfold in front of them. 

Five doesn't need help judging from that sly smirk on his face as he warps behind another agent. The boy throws his weight around the man, arms looped around the person's neck and steers the person to turn around, just in time to take a spray of bullets to the face. Five grins. Warping off the man's collapsing body and reappearing behind the next agent, this time with a glass plate which he slams down against the agent's helmet, it shatters harmlessly bouncing off the kevlar armor. But that wasn't the point, was it? Allison watches as Five swipes the broken shards from the air and at impossible speeds stabs them right through the Kelvar armor, before warping away avoiding a blow to the head. 

He's still smiling and tossing jeers and taunts. She can see the way the agents start getting angry. The way they grit their teeth and reach for something along their belt before Five pops up right next to them, their belt in his hands, and a sick twisted smile on his face. 

"Hmmm~" Five hums, fingers tapping on the utility belt he had stolen, "What do we have here?" He smirks, eyes glancing up and looking up at the room. 

"Shut the fuck up brat-!" The agent charges with a knife in hand, Five grins, crossing his legs over the other as he lets the Agent come up just centimeters to his face before warping away behind him. 

"Hey." Five says, tossing one of the stolen grenades up in the air before catching it, "You missed." 

The remaining four agents make a move for Five again, but he vanishes just at the last second and reappears on top of one of the agents. Deft hands peeling off one of their helmets to reveal a woman's face before He shoves the grenade right through her open surprised mouth. Blood dribbles down the injury the woman's face frozen in shock. Everything slows down as everyone watches Five pull the pin. 

"FIVE WHAT THE FUC-" Allison shouts, just about ready to rumor his dumbass until both the woman and Five vanished. 

Five reappears alone as he fixes his tie nonchalantly when an explosion off in the distance rocks the building. 

"Well, are we going to continue or what?" He says as he sits down against the counter taking a sip from a cup of coffee behind him. The three other agents hesitate, stepping backward. Five takes a long sip from his cup, sighing with content before setting the cup gently down behind him. "No?" Five gestures around him towards the three idling agents, "Really?" Five chuckles, leaning back, "Such a shame, really, I was looking forward to it!"

He grins.

And vanishes. The agents begin panicking scrambling to find the boy before realizing too late when one the agents stops mid-motion and crumples to the ground like a piece of paper, revealing Five standing behind him. The boy wearing a thoughtful face as he twirls one of the knives in his fingers in much the same fashion as Diego.

It's obvious now that Five is just toying with them. And once it becomes obvious, they start running. Breaking into a full sprint for the door only for Five to reappear in front of them, hands casually shoved into his pockets. Both fully grown adults skitter to a stop. Fear evident in their body language. 

"What-what do you want...?" One of the agents says Allison can't see their faces under the helmets. 

"You know I was really expecting more from, you guys." Five responds leaning on the heels of his feet. "You guys have a reason for attacking me? Especially before I got the chance to fully enjoy my morning coffee?" 

The agent on the left hesitates, "We-we're-we're just following orders... sir." 

"Right...." Five drags out the last syllable, "Okay, and I was just minding my own business, and well-" he gestures at the carnage around him, "-we all know how that turned out." Then he vanishes again, and the second agent drops dead. His head cleanly removed from the rest of his body. Five stands behind him with one of the agent's stolen machetes. He peers up at the last agent remaining who just makes a fucking break for it. They slam right through the doors zooming past both Vanya and herself. But... they don't get very far. 

Five casually walks out the now trashed diner with a pistol. He whistles, aiming down the sights and fires. 

A perfect shot right at the back of the head.

"Huh." Five says with a slight smirk, "I still got it." He turns around just about to get back inside until he notices Vanya and Allison, "Oh you guys are here early."

"Five...?" Vanya says hesitantly breaking their silence, "...Um... you're not hurt are you?"

Unlike some of her Siblings, Allison was never much for violence. Sure, she could totally kick someone's ass if she wanted to but that's not exactly civilized. And civility is what she prides herself in, unlike some people. 

"No? Why would I be?" He slips inside the diner and presumes to take a seat while nursing his cold cup of coffee with an almost forlorn expression.

"What the fuck Five," Allison says, anger simmering under her skin, "What the hell was up with that grenade? You could have gotten us killed."

"It's fine, relax. I had it under control." The boy has the audacity to look at her as if he hadn't just carelessly risked not only her own but Vanya's life. What if it didn't work out? What if something happened? Allisson hisses, and bites back a retort. 

They don't have time for this.

Allison reaches out to Vanya, hand wrapped comfortingly around Vanya's shoulders as she guides both of them to take a step back. Sure, Allison is used to violence, and gore. Fights don't end up pretty all the time. But Vanya? Her powers never let fights get this ugly, it's her first time seeing something of this caliber.

Five just sighs head tilted a little bit to the left. Blood dripping from his face and onto his clothes. 

"Besides the point, we're getting off track. Did you guys happen to see our brothers on the way here?" 

Allison grits her own teeth trying to quell her simmer rage at Five's carelessness towards lives, "No." 

Five taps his foot against his chair. He chews on his bottom lip, eyes scanning the gruesomely mutilated bodies surrounding before checking his watch. 

"They're late."

"Go figure." Allison deadpans.

"By 10 minutes, excluding the little-" Five gestures around them, "-surprise party we got. Damn, we were supposed to go over the information Deigo found about Lila and the rogue commission. So much for finally getting that out of way."

"They might have gotten into trouble," Vanya says, tugging on Allison's sleeve when she steps back. "We'll go see what we can find, you can join us later... after your morning coffee."

"Really?" Five sighs, dragging a bloody hand through his hair, "I owe you two one, I'll meet up with you guys in 20 minutes, I really fucking hope we don't need to go save their asses." Then Five warps away with an exhausted expression, before warping back immediately grumbling about how annoying it is to clean off bloodstains. He ducks inside the building untying his tie and shedding his stained jacket.

Allison watches him disappear before hooking her arm around Vanya, "Let's go." she whispers, "They might really be in trouble."

The two of them walk in silence. 

"Does he usually fight... like that?" Vanya says suddenly. She slips her hands into her pocket, eyes edging towards the left side of the road. "I mean like I know he was supposed to be an assassin but..." 

Allison stops, eyebrows furrowing, she's never seen Five fight, like honest to god fight, _fight_ until... today. She's seen him pull some moves, and a couple of scuffles but never a real, honest to good bloody fight. "I don't know." She scuffs her heels against the ground sending a loose pebble skittering a couple of feet ahead.

She thinks back to the woman with the grenade shoved down her mouth who was warped away somewhere else for some poor passerby to find the remnants of her body, if there even was one.

Violence has been a part of their lives since they've been born. Allison shouldn't be surprised. 

But she is. 

She is very, very surprised. 

Luther never fought like that, and sure Diego was a bit meaner after being a vigilante on the streets, but he didn't leave battle scenes looking like that either. 

Five was an assassin. 

He was a cold-blooded killer. 

He has been alive for longer than any of them have even been alive. 

She knows this. 

Allison stops halfway through the walk and turns around to the once innocent-looking diner they had just left. 

Why is she so surprised? 

"Allison." Vanya starts, reaching out with a soothing hand, "Come on we're supposed to find Diego, Luther, and Klause. Do you know where they are?" 

"Right," Allison says, digging for her phone. "I'll call them." 

She tries not to think about it the scene too much, she should have expected it really. She glances up at Vanya trying to assess her. Why is she thinking about Five? She should be more worried about Vanya right now even after everything... After everything, they had lived through, no matter how comfortable Vanya had gotten with violence. That kind of carnage wasn't just something you walk into and get out completely alright.

"Weren't we supposed to be superheroes or something?" Vanya says eyes peering at Allison. Vanya stands there stiffly, her hands shoved into her pockets as she looks at something off to the side. Like she couldn't bear to look Allison in the eye at the moment.

Not for the first time, Allison wonders what must be going through Vanya's head. It's impossible to read Vanya sometimes especially with her almost poker-perfect apathetic face. 

The phone starts dialing Diego's number

She can feel the unasked question hanging in the air.

Tension building between them like a volcano. 

_What happened?_

* * *

**Klaus Hargreeves**

* * *

Every time Klaus sees Five he always gets a mini heart attack. Even now when he's drugged to the nines and tied to a chair because of the fucking not-commission group decided to kidnap him, Luther, and Diego.

Fucking hell. He can't catch a break. He's pretty sure he's bleeding somewhere but he honestly doesn't care, he just wants to fucking go home, he is sooooo sick of today. He struggles against his bonds, the rope burning against his pale skin. Ugh, that's going to be a pain to handle later, if he struggles anymore he'll get rope-burn, and then he'll have to change his skin-care routine. Fuck. Klaus slumps against the chair, rolling his head off to the side to take in Diego's lazy slump, and Luther's passed out body. The first sign that signals their rescuers are gunshots. Loud cracking booms echoing off in the hallway connected to their room, followed by a lot of mysterious thumps, and cracking bones. The noise eventually dies off into silence, before the door to their room gets thrown open. 

Klaus resists the urge to puke, which he deserves an award for because oh my fucking god, Five.

His small, little, child, brother is covered head to toes in blood. The hallway that Klaus can now see is decorated with bodies, extremities, organs, bone shards, and everything else Klaus firmly and resolutely does not want to see. Like at all. But unfortunately for him, their captors didn't drug Klaus hard enough because alongside the grisly scene he could still see Five's ghosts parade. 

He twists against his bonds again. 

It's only Five.

It's only the ghosts around Five that Klaus can see when he's high.

And he hates it. Hates them with every fiber of his being. The way they walk behind Five and crowd a room with their horrid, wretched appearances that makes Klaus studiously turn away to any spot not occupied by them. Some of them are lucky, Klaus thinks as Five approaches. There's plenty of adults who died easily. Quick and painless. But the ones in suits, and masks? The commission agents? Klaus has sympathy for them, despite what they've done to his family. Nobody deserves to have their entrails ripped from their stomach and shoved back down their mouth, or their flesh torn off by bare fingers and quite literally shoved up their own asses.

Five moves closer and Klause has to try not to pee his pants at the sight of dozens of massacred bodies.

He doesn't know when the ghosts started following his brother. When Five first appeared there hadn't been much. Just a little kid with a single bullet to the head, and an elderly woman with a bloody line across her throat. Klaus hadn't thought much of it, simply assumed they had been some academy ghosts he had never seen before. It wasn't until he noticed that they had been following Five. He saw them sitting in the Van with his brother. Klaus wasn't ignorant to the way Ben looked at them either, and the way Ben would sometimes disappear to follow them only to come back with a twisted expression. It was only after Klaus came to the realization that they were Five's victims that more ghosts began following five. The armed men in black clothes, the men and women in suits, and the ones in commission uniforms. Their bodies so badly damaged Klause wasn't sure any of them could even speak, hell he doesn't even think they realize Klause can see them. The way they follow Five around. He watched them once, hauntingly tracing each of Five's footsteps making grabs for his body but only to pass through harmlessly. 

There were so many of them.

There are so many more now, that Five is standing right next to him slicing through his bonds. Holy shit he's going to pee his pants. Where's Ben when he needs him? Why does he always have to leave when Five comes in? Who cares if all those ghosts take up all the room and leave none for Ben! Who cares he's too drugged to properly keep Ben in existence. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Why is it always Five? 

Klaus bites back a whine, letting it drown in the back of his throat as Five helps him on his feet. Allison enters the room. Her stance clearly wary judging from the sharp line of her shoulders. Klaus doesn't miss the way her gaze lingers on their smallest brother, Five. Shit, was she with him the whole time, while he was out in that hallway? 

Klaus is lucky he wasn't there.

"I really have to save you dipshits again don't I?" Five complains. Klaus keeps his eyes steadily trained on the ceiling. There are even new ones Klause realizes, a lot of new ones. So many new ones with new, fresh, creative, and inventive ways of dying. How does Five do that?

"Five...?" Diego rouses. "Shit... I... think... I think.. they drugged us all up... but I think they knocked out Luther, I think... God, I do not like this, Klaus how the fuck do you handle this?" 

"The drugs I used are very different... from this." He rasps, voice tight. He doesn't have it in him at this moment to bring out his usual bubbly persona.

Five only snorts in response as he helps Klaus to the entrance. Hands wrapped tightly around Klaus's side, his face twisted in concentration. "I fucking hate being 13, cant' even lift a fucking body." 

Klaus ignores that comment. His eyes straying to the ghost that has now flooded the room. There are so many. Missing limbs, no eyes, chunks of flesh ripped out, bullet-holes, and every other terrible thing that could happen to the human body. He's totally gonna piss his pants. Why does Five have to be so close? Does he know how creepy his ghosts follow him? Literally centimeters away waiting for the moment they get their chance at revenge.

"Alright come on big boys lets get going. Vanya's waiting outside in the car, Five do you think you could help me with Luther once you're done with Klaus?" Allison says somewhere out of his vision, Klause doesn't want to look away from Five. This is the first time he's seen Five covered in so much blood. The fresh liqud drips down his face and dribbles down his chin. Dropping against his once clean uniform. Diving into the wool of Five's vest, and burying itself into Five's skin. 

"Yeah, yeah I got it. Let me jump Klaus out." Five groans as he heaves up his useless, and terrified body. Bright blue light pooling at Five's hands before they're being pulled through space and reappearing inside the car. "Klaus, what the fuck, did you just pee your pants?" Te combined sensation of jumping and having one of the ghosts passing through his body is not doing him any favors.

He really, really hates this. He hates it! Absolutely! Why wasn't it Allison? Or Diego? Or Vanya? Or literally **ANYBODY ELSE**?

"Sorry. I'm just.... so high right now, I can't help it." Klaus groans. He drops his hands against the seat wishing to just fall asleep. He cracks his eyes open, watching the way Five rolls his eyes and jumps out of the car. The boy adjusts his sleeves and reties his tie, completely oblivious to how the ghosts lean closer to Five. One of them reaches out for Five again but passes through his body uselessly, their fingerless hands twitching with agitation. Damn it where's Ben?

The boy starts mumbling about something Klaus doesn't quite understand. Not like Klaus cares right now. He really wants to be sober, which by the way he doesn't usually. He only wishes to be sober when Five is around, because he really, really wants to be able to at least see Ben. 

Not five minutes later Diego, Luther, Allison, and Five appear. Luther's body dumped into the back of the shitty Van he bought while Allison dumps Diego's body next to him before climbing in herself. Five takes his designated seat at the front next to Vanya. 

"Everyone here?" Vanya's soft voice soothes Klaus's nerves. The engine starts, and presumably, they start driving away, he's not really sure. The vague metallic scent of blood wafting to the back. Klaus scrunches his nose and screws his eyes shut, he doesn't want to see the ghosts running after them, or clinging to the car windows. Hands gripping against anything they could just to stay with Five. 

"Yep, let's get going. We have a rogue-commission group to wipe from existence." Five says sarcastically. "But I guess we can't because some idiots decided to get their asses kidnapped."

"Hey." Diego says drowsily from next to him, "We didn't choose to be kidnapped." 

"I second that." Klause says throwing a single hand in the air with as much dramatic flair as he can manage. Allison snorts from her spot on the other side of the seat while Klaus spots how the corner of Vanya's lips twitch upwards.

He hopes Ben is still there when he's sober again. He loves his little psychotic murderous serial killer stuck in the body of a thirteen-year-old, but by god does it make him feel like shit sometimes. The only condolence that Klaus has it that the little girl and grandmother from before are no longer following Five around. 

What sobering news.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading \ o / I hope you enjoyed it!


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